


Mass

by armario



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Eating Disorders, Food Issues, M/M, Sorry Will, inappropriate psychiatry techniques, me projecting, nonsensical timeline in relation to canon, weird stuff going on, which just completely sums up hannibal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-23
Updated: 2016-10-23
Packaged: 2018-08-24 05:39:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8359354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/armario/pseuds/armario
Summary: Some days are worse than others. Some days he can force down a meal and keep it down, logical part of his brain knowing he mustn't die like this- if Hannibal is going to kill him, he's determined it won't just be by influence. There are times when he can actually finish a meal, and the guilt only comes a while afterwards. Other days he can barely swallow his own saliva without being hyper aware of the movement and the idea of food is as tempting as swallowing rusty nails; and Hannibal's influence is like a shadow, tailing him, reminding him of his sins and causing them. That doesn't mean the pain of hunger and missing Hannibal are any more distinguishable.





	

Will isn't eating. Hasn't been for a while now. It's an issue he's been finding quite easy to ignore, God knows he has worse problems, up until now.

People are starting to worry. His dogs are starting to worry.

He's kneeling on the cold tiled floor over the toilet bowl, having emptied the contents of his stomach from earlier. One of the dogs whines and scratches against the door. He breathes in deeply, shakily, spits out the last of it and rises to his feet.

For the past few months he's been skipping food almost religiously. He hadn't realised it, so wrapped up in everything else going on. And when he did suddenly find he was finding it hard to eat, he hadn't tried to stop. It felt good. It felt like he was purging his body of every human he'd unknowingly ingested.

Yesterday, Jack had tried to offer his burger as they stood side by side surveying the scene (which was enough to ruin his appetite already) - "Will, c'mon, tell me it's not the best you've ever had-" "no, no Jack, I'm really not hungry"- and he'd refused. Today, Alana had caught him unaware after class, looked up at him with sad blue eyes that sought ways to fix him, and offered a Tupperware container of salad. It looked good, but food always had, and it was no indicator of ethics behind it.

"It's fine," he said, smiling. He could still summon a smile, clung to that along with everyone else. "I ate earlier."

"When?"

The bluntness of the question showed she was onto him. His automatic reaction was to be defensive, but that was probably her expectation. No, it definitely was, he felt that.

"This morning," he told her without hesitation. "I had a cooked breakfast. I'm really not hungry."

Alana gave him a look that said _I'm a psychologist and I know what's going on here_. He hated that look. Mostly because he knew too.

"Come see me if you change your mind."

He hadn't. He'd gone home and eaten three slices of un-buttered, burnt toast, and coughed it straight back up, so now here he is. His stomach is in tatters and he feels terribly light headed, so he rapidly drinks some sickly sweet sugar-water.

The pain thrums sporadically through his body but the twisted sense of satisfaction is all- encompassing and constant. Every pound he had put on since being introduced to Hannibal's exquisite cooking has been shed, and more just to be sure. So that the human meat that had been added to his own mass in the form of fat would be gotten rid of. So that he is in control of what he eats, how he eats it, with whom he eats it and if he even eats at all.

 Some days are worse than others. Some days he can force down a meal and _keep_  it down, logical part of his brain knowing he mustn't die like _this_ \- if Hannibal is going to kill him, he's determined it won't just be by influence. There are times when he can actually finish a meal, and the guilt only comes a while afterwards. 

Other days he can barely swallow his own saliva without being hyper aware of the movement and the idea of food is as tempting as swallowing rusty nails; and Hannibal's influence is like a shadow, tailing him, reminding him of his sins and causing them. That doesn't mean the pain of hunger and missing Hannibal are any more distinguishable.

Two hours later, when the sharp nausea pangs fade to a dull ache, he slumps down onto the sofa surrounded by his dogs nuzzling up to him and lies awake wondering about how it has come to this. There is only one answer: Hannibal Lecter, who is to blame for most things. Some good, most bad. Nights like this, stomach aching, throat raw from sickness and mind sluggish, all Will can think is how much he misses Hannibal.

There is a deeper truth to his current problem. One far more difficult to admit.  
While the texture of any food may remind him of his own inadvertent cannibalism, and the man responsible for it, while he panics before swallowing because it feels like he's being forced, while he's paranoid about losing control and being manipulated over anything- another real, terrifying fact is that he _misses Hannibal's cooking._ He misses the taste and the texture, the incredible skill and expertise involved. Being able to watch a master at work, being privy to Hannibal's greatest pleasure. Sharing that experience with someone he trusted, someone he cares for and misses deeply with an immovable ache in his heart.  
Will's mind often short circuits and fails to register the emotions that he _should_  feel towards Hannibal, instead only providing the ones he felt before. Or that's what he tells himself, instead of considering that nothing is enough to tear them apart.

Shivering, Will turns over on his side, leans down to run his fingers through Winston's fur and feels the comforting rise and fall of the dog's chest. His weary eyes fall shut and he slips into an exhausted sleep. The hunger pains are at bay until the morning if he convinces himself they're eating away at the demons. 

\--

He wants to tell him. Everything. But right now, knowing that this is the first time in so long that he'll get a real meal, the association with food brings his developing problem to the forefront of his mind. Will wants Hannibal to look at him and just _know_ , to trace fingers down gaunt cheeks and in the spaces between his jutting ribs.

"You've lost weight, Will."

He takes a deep breath and lets vulnerable honesty leak into his voice.

"I've been having trouble eating."

Empathy, and an unfortunate soul deep connection, means that he can tell Hannibal is exerting iron self control not to smile. That he can influence Will's life so greatly even when he is absent is unnerving to Will and exciting to Hannibal.

"I am sorry to hear it," Hannibal answers in a measured tone. "As you know, I believe food is one of life's greatest gifts."

"My feelings are mixed."

"How so?"

"It's like... on one hand, knowing what you fed me makes me feel wrong and rotten inside. I was thinner, before I met you... I've lost all the weight I put on. And that means I've gotten rid of... them."

The psychiatrist's voice lowers and as he says the words, Will feels a bone deep shudder pass through him- "You should never feel guilty about eating anything."  
Or anyone.

"It's quite hard when you know that what you're eating used to be alive," Will says quietly. He sits down, rubs at his tired eyes.

"I follow your logic completely," Hannibal says. "If it is guilt about the innocent that plagues you."

"I thought about becoming vegetarian-"

Hannibal smiles, eyes alight with cruel mirth. Will digs his nails into his palm.

"-But it didn't make much difference."

"And why do you think that is?"

"It's... texture and taste, remind me of... other things. Things I've eaten before, bad experiences."

Hannibal tilts his head at this. Will huffs. "I'm not saying you're a bad cook, for God's sake, I'm saying that you fed me human meat without my knowledge."

He's been avoiding saying it aloud for so long and now that he has, an odd tension seems to drain out of him. "The people that I ate settled on my body, in fat. I lost the fat so I lost the humans inside me."

"I see."

And he really does. It is a sad thing when one starts to find a primal necessity, such as sleep or nourishment, so difficult. Settling on a particular decision, he moves closer, satisfied that the other man does not step back. Vying to sustain eye contact, made easier by how unusually unwilling Will is to look away (in both fear of him and fear he may disappear), he lowers his voice to a barely audible pitch and asks, "May I?"

Will blinks, a deer in headlights. He opens his mouth to answer but no sound comes out. 

"To scope what you have lost."

The clarification makes Will's breath hitch. There is little ambiguity now, this implication of a desired intimacy not quite shocking as it should be. He gives the smallest nod. Hannibal's mouth quirks in an approving smile, perhaps aiming to be reassuring, ending up far more predatory. The psychiatrist places his hands on Will's shoulders and gently turns him round so his back is inches from Hannibal's chest. His fingers trace the jut of Will's cheekbones, the pronounced hollow beneath them, down to slide along his jaw. Will's breathing comes fast, already fast and faint pulse picking up.

As fingertips drag down the column of his throat, he swallows involuntarily, and Hannibal quickly presses his hand flush against his neck to feel the movement, as though he was waiting for it. Will makes a tiny sound of undetermined meaning, then relaxes his muscles completely, as though he, a rabbit, has given up the struggle in the grasp of a fox. He raises a hand to grip Hannibal's wrist, thumb pressed to his steady pulse and hesitantly guides it beneath his shirt, up to his prominent ribs. 

He can't gauge the other's thoughts, which puts him on edge. Mocking, disapproval, amusement, disdain- all these possibilities flit through his mind. He's sure his heartbeat is loud enough to be heard the other side of the room now, let alone this close.

"Starved in every way, Will," Hannibal murmurs. Against his neck. Fingers dipping into the gaps between his ribs, just as he had imagined. Fantasized about. The idea of Hannibal breaking the skin there so easily, with so little resistance from his paper skin, and finding only dust and bones- the scrape of nails, hard enough to draw the blood he knows he has, down his side makes him inhale sharply and twist round, gripping Hannibal's shirt-sleeves till his breathing calms.

And when it does, the question is posed,

"Is there such a huge difference between eating an animal, and eating a person?"

Will stares at him. He tries to find a satisfactory reply but a reasonable response eludes him, apart from appealing to Hannibal's morality, which seems to have been lost a long time ago.

"Would you not rather eat a vile, irredeemable human being than a tiny, peaceful lamb?"

The question is a perfectly laid trap, and its logic is hard to fault.  
Will sighs. He leans forward, asks something that has played on his mind since he'd first accessed the Chesapeake Ripper's.

"Wouldn't eating someone so terrible mean you were tainting your body by ingesting them?"

Hannibal's pride is radiating from him, though his external demeanour would give nothing away to anyone but the empath.  
"You are creating something beautiful and worthy from something hideous and indigestible."

Will is suddenly overwhelmed by a rush of awe for Hannibal. It leaves him feeling slightly sick, and his stomach fucking _growls_. He's missed the man too much, the way that he can always provide an answer to any question, and comfort any fear.

"I wanted to see you for so long," he says quietly.

"And now that you have?"

"I feel... I feel whole again." The answer comes as he realises it. Again, his reaction to such a revelation concerning _this particular person_ is always abnormal, never as repulsed as it should be. A dissociative cocoon spun by the man himself envelops him whenever he is around him, enabling him to skip over misdeeds like a scratched record. It makes it so easier to love.

"I feel far more when you are in my life." The shadows from the fire play across Hannibal's face as he admits it.

Will waits a second to rest his fingers over Hannibal's, still settled on his side.

There is a moment where nothing is said. Will's pangs of hunger strike regularly and harsher now. He feels hollow and on edge. It takes a second, but the older man curls an arm round his waist, one hand resting light on his hip, and lets him stay there for as long as needed. It is plain in this scene playing out that Hannibal has succeeded in making Will only half a man without him. But he does not gloat, outwardly nor inwardly: this Will knows because he is surrounded by Hannibal's feeling, one he is projecting so he is easier to read than usual, that this moment is as it should be, that he is caring for Will and shall do so always.

The spell breaks, Will steps back, forever awkward, but reluctant to have broken it. He gives a self-conscious cough to which Hannibal smiles properly, rare and sharp-toothed.

"Shall I make us dinner, Will?" Hannibal asks politely, as though the magnitude of the question is not so great. It is an offer with only one correct response.

Will takes a shaky breath, and with as much conviction as he can muster, agrees.


End file.
